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The monthly benefits provided by SNAP enhance the foodpurchasing power of eligible low-income individuals and families. However, as described by many studies, including one by the Institute of Medicine, the greatest shortcoming of SNAP is that benefits for most households are not enough to get through the entire month without hunger or being forced to sacrifice nutrition quality. This limitation persists even in the face of overwhelming evidence on the gains from more adequate monthly SNAP benefits.

This paper briefly analyzes why SNAP benefits are inadequate, reviews the body of research showing positive effects from more adequate SNAP benefits, and concludes with some of the key policy solutions that can improve benefit adequacy.

This annual analysis looks at school breakfast participation and policies in 75 large school districts across the country to evaluate successful practices in reaching more low-income children with school breakfast. It is a companion report to the School Breakfast Scorecard.

This annual report analyzes participation in the School Breakfast Program among low-income children nationally and in each state and the District of Columbia for the 2017–2018 school year. The report also features best practices for increasing participation in the program, including breakfast after the bell models and community eligibility. Also see: School Breakfast: Making it Work in Large School Districts.

Hospitals across the United States are helping fill the nutrition gap during the summer by offering meals to children through the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which provides federal funding for meals and snacks served to low-income children 18 years old and younger when school is not in session. By participating in SFSP, hospitals have an opportunity to help improve child health and combat child hunger.

Community eligibility has become a popular option among eligible schools due to the many benefits it brings to the school nutrition program and the entire school community. In the 2016–2017 school year, more
than 20,000 high-needs schools with an enrollment of nearly 10 million students had adopted community eligibility.

FRAC’s report on participation data in the Afterschool Nutrition Programs measures how many children had access to afterschool suppers and snacks in October 2017, nationally and in each state. 1.2 million low-income children benefited from afterschool suppers in October 2017, an 11.3 percent increase from the previous year.

This analysis of the Gallup data by the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) looks at the rates at which Americans answered “yes” to the question “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?” nationally, regionally, at the state level, and at the local level (by Metropolitan Statistical Area, or MSA) in 2016 and 2017.

This report measures the reach of the Summer Nutrition Programs in July 2017, nationally and in each state. A companion piece, FRAC’s Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Summer Breakfast Status Report, focuses on summer breakfast participation.

This report measures the reach of breakfast through the Summer Nutrition Programs in July 2017, nationally and in each state. It is a companion piece to FRAC’s Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report, which focuses on summer lunch participation.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is one of the crown jewels of U.S. public policy. More than 40 million children, parents working at low wages, seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, members of the active duty military, unemployed working-age adults, and others receive SNAP in an average month.

This report outlines the numerous benefits of SNAP, how attacks on the program are directed at much of America’s population, why the proposals to restrict SNAP foods are misplaced, and policy solutions that exist to improve SNAP beneficiaries’ health.

This report reviews existing and emerging opportunities to document food insecurity screening, assessment, intervention, and billing for each part of a patient visit using discrete codes and language from standardized EHR medical vocabularies.